Posted on by Trevor Elms

Presently Present.

Seems like I’ve seriously slowed down with my writing, but there is only so much free time. I’ve been spending a lot of it with Megan and my friends lately. The buddies live across the country so it’s been online playing a video game. I consider that hanging out all the same.

I decided yesterday that too much time had passed and I needed to write something. Could finish one of the many drafts I have laying around now, or write a poem, as the last thing I posted was an article about balance.

So, I again found myself writing about time. I was supposed to get this posted this morning, but didn’t find the time yesterday to get it prepared. Had to do so this morning before work and get it out at 4PM. I really like sticking to specific posting times, at least. Gives me the nice illusion of a proper schedule I have set for myself.

Anyways, here’s my most recent poem about time,

Presently Present.

Tick.
Time.

There’s always so much.
There’s never enough.

Tock.
Time.

Looking ahead so far away.
Looking behind — just yesterday.

Hand.
Clock.

Staring, steadily sweeping.
Swiftly sacking all sense of certainty.

Tick.
Time.

Tock.
Time.

To live in the present.
Conquers some of the meaning.

Behind this rhyme.

 

I do want to continue pushing myself towards writing more regularly again. However really enjoy these periods of reflection when I build up that burning desire to write. I also enjoy consuming media myself and of so many forms that it is easy to get distracted. Trying to release at least something every week. That’s more than I have managed in some time aside from when I first started this site.

Thank you for reading.

If you have interest in reading anything else I have written please check the Table of Contents, here.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2017
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 4 Comments

Familiar Fortress.

NetherRealm Studios released their newest video game “Injustice 2” recently. It’s a fighting game with the DC super hero pantheon. As a big fan of comic books, the franchise is my bread and butter. Because it released just yesterday — I haven’t wanted to spare much free time for lots of words.

I played and played, then realized that I hadn’t gotten that feeling of accomplishment that I have grown used to before bed. When I get something written down and completed. So I wanted to write a bit of poetry about video games and what they are meaning to me in tandem with writing as I get older.

Familiar Fortress.

Moving pixels in three dimensional space
give unquestionable escape.

Hunting for treasure,
scavenging for leather.

Climing rooftops,
to collect a feather.

Sated.

Used to be the desires to create.
Polygons streaming across.

Ornate.

Clashing of plate and steel,
feelings easier to process.

Intake.

Moving pixels in three dimensional space
give unquestionable escape.

Eventually no longer,

sates.

Bake thoughts,
share the plate.

Fate.

Not one to believe in it.
Though writing is what it is instead.

Gate.

 

I do now have some sort of sense of accomplishment, and a release from the day in some way.  We will see if I manage to write a lot of words tomorrow, or if I will climb into my familiar fortress and end the night with poetry again.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2017
Posted on by Trevor Elms

Cigarette for Dave.

Feeling like the story about this poem is much more interesting than the poem itself. My friend Dave that I met in Hawai’i while we speak infrequently now, is like a brother to me. He ended up having to go back to Maine before our first semester completed.

A few nights before he left town us and the rest of the Ohana went out for a night of fun. Dave and I decided that we were going to hold on to one cigarette in each of our ears for the whole night. To see if we could make it last.

Both of our cigarettes made it — discolored from sweat, though his broke in half. I remember sitting on a log after nights’ end watching the sunrise. I believe we were all together at that time. Myself, Jack, Kainoa, Kisa, & Dave. Gavin & Neal were not a part of the festivities yet, unfortunately. While sitting on the log I pulled out my pen and wrote this poem on the cigarette that had made it through the night with us.

I read it then and there to Dave, and smoked it by myself fairly saddened — after he left the island.

Cigarette for Dave.

Here’s a cig from me to you,
It wasn’t the last, nor one of the few.
Just remember when it’s over, it’s not through.
Yo guy, hit me up when you need a true crew.

— To my Maine-iac in brotherly arms.

Dave and I chatted just recently about getting back together again one of these days, or in Valhalla. Whichever comes first. I can’t wait the give the asshole a giant hug.

Love you dude.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 4 Comments

Not Enough.

Try as I might, there just wasn’t enough time for me to do everything I wanted this weekend. Including writing a full story like I have been lately. Been wanting to write about time and what it means to me, but haven’t been able to find the words yet.

Since there were strong feelings in me about a lack of time, I wrote another new poem to take care of my inability to write one thousand plus words.

It’s about doing what we can with the time we have.

Not Enough.

Time flies by.

It’s wont to do,
whether we want it to —

or not.

Oftentimes this is the hardest thing for me.

Bought.

Time can’t be.
Fleetingly, flippantly —

frighteningly,

finite.

For what is it?

Fraught but with —
fingerprint.

‘Swhat we leave.

If not,
’tis but breeze in kind.

We know the begin —

but cannot the end.

Sometimes to come,
an effervescent rend.

When time sequentially serenades
a solliloquy somberly —

stop.

Smell sunflower, something —
or other.

Remember your bedrock.

Take support, gain cover.

Time runs out.
Not a wonder.

Enjoying what we have,
while striving for more.

Brings happiness.

Can’t guarantee without a blunder,
but happiness —

happiness that can’t be given a number.

 

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms.
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2017
Posted on by Trevor Elms

Human Just Like You.

Remembering the prompt for this one is tough. Thinking it was that I had to write a story of someone oppressed with a classmate, senior year in high school. We ended up writing a simple rhyme with a message that I enjoyed, but I just don’t like simple rhymes. They don’t do much for me. Not to say this isn’t simple, just less so.

I wrote this because I got tired of hearing the word “gay” used as a way to describe things people don’t like. I have a number of gay family members who are some of the best people I know on this planet. Not to mention my other friends from all different walks of life. Love and let live.

So this was meant to have an impact and be pretty visceral.

All you have to do is spend a little time on the internet to see how frequent stories like these used to be, and still are. Marginalizing and mistreating people just because they are different from you is not okay. If it is something they have no control over, that isn’t directly negatively affecting anyone else — they deserve to be treated like humans with respect.

I was also just a fairly angry person at this point in my life. Going back and reading a lot of the things I was writing, I can see why my Mother was concerned about me. I have edited this significantly — the original work needed some help.

Human Just Like You.

There was a boy named Beau,
had a habit of wearin’ his mother’s clothes.

High-heels, lipstick, even pantyhose.

In his mind conflict would grow.
Sexual preference society would sew.

Beau’s first love — found in teenage years.

His name — Louis Stears,
Valedictorian senior year.

When Beau looked in those eyes he saw them gleam.
All he wanted to be — Louis’ prom queen.

Beau had a “problem”, one clinically and clergically prescribed,
in his world he was attracted to men’s thighs.

When Beau asked it took Louis by surprise.
He answered simply “No you faggot! You fuckin’ like guys?”

Beau turned around, went home and cried.

Louis rolled in with a forty-five and a shovel,
along with some friends to help move the rubble.

Louis broke in while Beau was in bed,
immediately the forty-five cocked to his head.

Louis stated “Any last words before I make you dead!?”
These are Beau’s last words this is what he said,

“I may be gay and a faggot to you,
but by pulling that trigger you’re killing a human,
just like you.”

Louis pulled the trigger and ended Beau’s life,
a brave boy who only faced strife.

 

 

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms.
Re-worked ©2017, Trevor Elms.
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2015, Sculpture by unknown.
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 5 Comments

Last Time.

Normally I will start with a little explanation about my poems. This is a new one that I recently wrote while thinking about past choices. I will be going into more detail at the bottom, because I think explaining the poem at the start could potentially hurt my desired readings of it.

Last Time.

It’s funny,

for the longest time I wanted to remember you.

Give you a ritual,
a grand finale,
one for the ages!

A beautiful view,
alone and introspective,
with the wind blowing across my face…

us two.

But it never was you, was it?

A facade,
fake,
false.

No, no, the forgotten one.
You’re it.
Not a memory to go with you.

Never will I ever remember you.

I think I should thank you for that,

my lack of ‘membrance.

There’s nothing now to tie me to you,
make me think about you.

Nothing about me misses you,

my last cigarette.

 

I’d noticed that I have written about cigarettes multiple times in my work now. It made me want to write about the fact that I have quit them. I am not yet ready to write the story about that journey, but this poem will suffice for now.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms.
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016

 

 

Posted on by Trevor Elms · 3 Comments

Higher Power.

This was the very first thing I wrote in my high school senior year English class. I have no date. We had to start with a line from one of Andrea Gibson’s works. I chose the line “I’ve learned the only difference between grace and hell, is who you were praying for when you fell.” in her piece “Traveling”.

That line really struck me at that moment. As someone who lives their life mostly based on evidence and science and was still really figuring things out. I really wanted to take that line and make something else of it.

Especially since I literally recently had someone ask why I don’t murder anyone — considering I don’t believe in the existence of hell. Well, because I am a good person, that’s why. I don’t need a reward or the fear of eternal torture to make me so. I am because I want to treat my other humans with respect and love.

This is one of the only religiously and politically charged things I have written, I am hoping to keep it that way. It almost feels like it should be two separate pieces, but like before I am trying to preserve these things as they were written in that time.

Higher Power.

“I’ve learned that the only difference between grace and hell is who you were praying for when you fell.”

— Andrea Gibson, “Traveling”

If God loves his people, will I be punished for not praying beneath his steeple?

You’re right, I don’t believe.

I’ve seen too much anguish and pain to see what you see,
to be a man kneeling and feeling a grace,
that matches no face,
that has no place in my world.

A place untold,
that resides in the deepest place I hold close.

I feel gross at this notion that all people can reside in one ocean,
religion has set too many wars in motion.

I feel so closed in,
tired of being judged because I believe in nothing.

I believe in life, live it the way you wish.
Living like a fish out of water is no way to be a mother, father, sister, or brother.

A wise man once said until the power of love overcomes the love of power we will not know peace.

We as a people protect the love in our arteries with artillery and destruction,
it’s seduction,
tough and rough with no way in to what we naturally gravitate towards,
hate in our words,
closing all doors of opportunity to peace and tranquility.

It’s killin’ me to see these bodies on the floor, ravaged by a mentality that breeds war.

My heart is sore at the core of my soul!

It’s a travesty to see these scenes of misery and blood,
faces shoved in the mud,

praying to the end of cocked guns.

 

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 4 Comments

Send Love.

No long article today, didn’t have the time as there was real work that pays the bills to be done. New poetry, though!

Had a conversation with a friend yesterday. I was being supportive but truthful. He wasn’t exactly happy with me but I wanted to tell him I care in the only way I can, honesty.

I told him I love him and care about him multiple times, regardless how angry he may feel at my words. He didn’t walk away from the conversation and we ended it on, I feel, really good terms.

I got to thinking about how often I use the word love, which is quite often. I love to use the word, and I mean it when used. This is about being more free with the use of the word love. The kind of difference I think that can make.

Send Love.

A word held so close to the chest,
it’s as if it was directly in tune,
with your heart’s,
best —

beat.

What if we didn’t hold it so close?
Sure, a higher chance of being morose, romantically —

what if we toss that stance,
romance.

Love of family and friend,
let it be free,
allow it to support,

give it a lend.

There’s a lot more can be done with a kind hand,
eye,
or voice.

You just might find in due time,
if you give love a send,

darkness you may mend.

 

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Megan Elms, artist unknown, ©2016
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 3 Comments

Lullabies.

January 5th, 2009. I think this may have been the very first thing that I wrote after getting out of Kahi Mohala. There’s a lot in these words I am still trying to make out. Thinking about it I am pretty positive that I was wondering if my substance abuse and halting of dreams at night had anything to do with making me crazy. And my dearest friend would be myself, the former self.

I still don’t dream very much any more, and when I do it is usually a nightmare. I am comfortable with that reality these days. That when I dream it is often pure torture. I think many have this problem.

Lullabies.

Dreams…

Real?
Unreal?
Or Surreal?

Nightmares.

The haunting eclipse that has daunted the narrow path,
since before I can remember.

I used to fall to my death multiple nights of the week,
to wake up right before I hit the ground, on my bedroom floor.

I used to be scared shitless, of the open closet door.

Though supposing the halt of these subconscious realities every night,
made it hard to deal with the problems I never knew existed.

Was it you? One of my dearest friends, that made the reality back home, so much harder to bend?

If it was, just know.

That I will go farther in life, than you could ever go.

One step back I may have taken,
but from this crack, my bones won’t be breakin’.

So from those deaths in my dreams,
I will always be stronger, than when you were scheming.

 

Thank you for reading.

©2009 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016.
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 1 Comment

Scattered.

Something I wrote September 17th, 2008. This, for me, may be the most beautiful poem I have ever written. I am not sure if I am capable of writing anything like this ever again, and it pains me.

I was so terribly broken when I wrote this. I wrote in this poem what writing means to me in a way that actively makes me feel the pain I was feeling — and how writing wouldn’t help, no matter how hard I tried.

Scattered.

I thought it was gone,
but now it’s come back.

As I lay down, my thoughts begin to snap.

I cannot find the peace and tranquility —
that is to thrive in dream-filled continuity.

Then to pass the time away,
scribbling, scratching, thoughts — ’til I decay.

I eventually crash when the sun arises,
a new day.

Though I despise this repetition,
what I reap in reprisal is refinement.

Reflectively recording all rational thought.

On scattered shreds of my soul…

 

I wrote recently about gaining my love for music back, and I did also write my first poem in years the other day. However I have not yet unlocked poetry within me. I need that again, it’s my favorite thing about language.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by John Elms ©2014